


The Flame

by Goddessofpredators



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: Benny/Meyer if you squint, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:20:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22946170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goddessofpredators/pseuds/Goddessofpredators
Summary: He came into the world with a fire burning in his veins. Wild and untamed like the rest of him.
Relationships: Meyer Lansky & Benny "Bugsy" Siegel
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	The Flame

**Author's Note:**

> So. It seems that I've fallen down a very particular rabbit hole, mostly consisting of three vintage gangsters and their stupid amounts of love for each other. Especially one of them *cough* hi Benny *cough*. I've got a ridiculous amount of feelings about this kid so here's a big thought dump that sort of sprang on me out of nowhere and demanded I write so I could try my hand at picking apart his brain a little. I hope you enjoy~

He came into the world with a fire burning in his veins. Wild and untamed like the rest of him. A constant need for something, an ache, an itch. 

It’s words he can’t seem to find, right on the edge of his tongue but unable to form enough to push them out, little things in the back of his head he can think about for hours and never articulate. He’s tried, time and time again, and still does sometimes when all he wants to do is  _ speak _ , shout and scream and pound his feet on the floor like a child for some form of the attention he craves so bad it’s like a hole gaping in his chest. 

The flames simmer below his skin; he learns how to tamp it down over the years, turn it into something manageable enough for him and the people he’s near (it doesn’t change anything. Bugsy, they still say. Bugsy Siegel, there he is! The kid with a chip on his shoulder the size of New York, the kid with the big mouth and the wild eyes who runs in guns blazing with a smile on his face!), but sometimes even that is never enough. 

So he wields it, brandishes it like a weapon. 

‘ _ Here I am _ ’ he snarls without words, lighting vendors carts ablaze and emptying bullets into bodies until the gun clicks and the clip is empty to satisfy something always niggling in a dark corner in his mind, out of reach. It’s a dare, a challenge to say something. Step up and call him out, look him in the eye and say those words he knows damn well everyone who meets him wants to. 

_ Chaye _ , they called him on the streets. 

_ Vilde chaye _ , running around hooting and whooping like a dog with its tail set on fire. He’d carry it back home with him along with that pit in his stomach, felt how it grew and grew and grew over the years until it nearly consumed him whole. 

_ Vilde chaye _ , they said, and it stung at first, but that sting only awakened a spite in him like a bear poked too many times. They wanted an animal- he’d show them an animal, with his teeth bared and his fingers curled into claws, hurling insults at the world and picking fights just to prove a point, to prove he was alive, to feel  _ something _ beyond that tangled knot of emotion in his chest that rubbed against his ribs in all the wrong ways. 

Meyer was the first, maybe the only one, to see past it. (And then came Charlie, but that was after years of barbed jabs and vitriol poured down each others throats- before the eventual waving of white flags and acceptance that each of them held a place against Meyer’s sides, and maybe against each other’s-, the product of repressed jealousy, at least on Benny’s part, and the constant feelings of ‘ _ am I even good enough anymore _ ?’ when Meyer started drawing Charlie in and shutting Benny out.)

Beyond the walls of crumbling concrete he’d built around himself like a cocoon, into the inner working of his mind like no one ever had before. He saw the bitterness there, how Benny would sit some days lost in his own thoughts, turning over all the things those kids had said to him in the schoolyard and on the streets and thinking  _ maybe they were right _ . Meyer saw the lingering doubts, the ‘ _ I’m never fucking good enough _ ’s Benny had drilled into himself from a young age, past all the wild feralness and bravado of him until he reached the part that curled in on itself and wondered if he was ever really worth it at all, all that fuss and constant wrangling just because he couldn’t control his fucking head. 

Meyer saw him for him, and Benny flinched away those first few years- from this boy who knew more than he should’ve and who’s gentle voice was like a balm to soothe the raging winds inside of him- in fear any little thing would scare him away. That he’d blink and see Benny the way the rest of the world did one day, look at the things he did and hear the words that poured from between split lips and shun him like all the others. 

But Meyer never judged. Not when Benny would mumble to himself, repeat the conversation he’d just had or that thought that’d just flickered into his mind because it was  _ so important and he couldn’t lose it he needed to keep it all _ , nor the restless way he’d fidget like a tiger caught in a cage if he was cooped up too long, as if his body were a livewire constantly surging with electricity. 

Meyer looked to him, and he understood. 

_Chaye_ , he’d say sometimes, and Benny had lashed out like a wounded cat at first before he’d realized Meyer had said it with a fondness in his voice. His _vilde chaye_ , so defiant and brave. And when Benny finally well and truly realized he had someone in his corner who’d take him and all the fucked up parts of himself voluntarily, who’d place a hand on his arm and whisper to him when he was at his worst ( _Ir zent shtark. Shtark aun heldish vi a barg. Ikh bin da. Ikh bin da_.) he damn near could’ve fallen to his knees and wept. 

Meyer was his rock, the anchor that kept his ship from drifting away into the choppy waters of the unknown, took his hand when he was spiraling and couldn’t make sense of his own emotions and held him through it until the storm passed. 

And Benny never said a word. 

Couldn’t ever find the right ones even if he wanted to, the things he felt when he’d stop and look at Meyer sometimes. But he was sure Meyer knew. He liked to think that glint behind his eyes when their gazes met meant something more than just a trick of the light. 

But he’d never know the way Benny worshiped him. He was the sun, huge and blinding and bright and Benny stood beneath him in awe and never once worried about being burned. 

**Author's Note:**

>  _Vilde chaye_ \- wild animal
> 
>  _Ir zent shtark. Shtark aun heldish vi a barg. Ikh bin da. Ikh bin da_ \- You are strong. Strong and brave as a mountain. I'm here. I'm here.
> 
> I am by zero means a Yiddish speaker and the only source I could find for this was, sadly, google translate (which I'm pretty sure completely butchered it) so MAJOR major apologies. Anyone who's fluent, please feel free to drop any corrections in the comments.


End file.
